When you have to write something, do you enjoy it? If you are like many people, you probably answered that you dislike writing. You might find writing distasteful because you struggle with it, or because your previous efforts have been unrewarding in terms of grades or feedback from others. Yet you know by now that you have to write. You will have to write papers in your academic courses and in your working life, in the form of business documents like reports, memos, letters, and e-mail.
Think of good writing skills as an opportunity. It can be an opportunity to express yourself effectively and share what you think and feel with others. Writing is also a valuable tool for increasing your understanding of your own ideas. It can lead to new insights and discoveries through intense focus on a topic, and it can even improve your critical thinking.
Practicing your writing and gaining valuable feedback from others will help improve your writing skills, but another valuable way to improve your writing is by studying the writing of others. As you’ve learned in this course already, reading and writing are linked, and each skill strengthens the other. You learn many new and different techniques and writing concepts by determining what works (and what does not work) in the writing of others.
Benefits of Writing
If writing has always been difficult or unrewarding for you, then you might need to increase your knowledge about the process of writing and the essential features of a successful finished product. Developing your writing, and practicing it, are opportunities to become more than just a better writer. Good writing skills can help you:
- Express yourself. You probably like to discuss your ideas, beliefs, and feelings with friends or family members. You may like to express yourself creatively, perhaps by playing music, dancing, painting, or even writing poetry or stories. Writing is yet another tool for self-expression. Even the academic papers you write give you a chance to share your thoughts about important subjects with others.
- Expand your understanding. Have you ever noticed that your thoughts and feelings always become clearer to you when you talk about them with others or write them down? That is because talking and writing require you to find words to express ideas that tend to be vague and half-formed before you try to communicate them. The act of finding language to share your thoughts helps you clarify in your own mind what you think and believe. Therefore, writing is a valuable tool for increasing your understanding of your own ideas. Writing is also a valuable tool for learning. When you write, you must think extensively about your subject. This lengthier, deeper, and more intense thought often leads to new insights and discoveries about the topic; as a matter of fact, when you write, you are likely to make new connections that you may not have made if you had not written about the subject. Thus, writing leads you to expand your knowledge and understanding of your subject matter.
- Improve crucial thinking skills. As mentioned previously, writing requires many different kinds of thinking skills, including logical reasoning, analysis, synthesis, creativity, and organization. These are the same thinking skills that you will need in many different areas of your academic, professional, and personal lives. Think of each new writing assignment as an opportunity to develop and strengthen the crucial thinking skills that will help you succeed in life.
You must practice writing if you are going to improve your writing skills. Take advantage of valuable opportunities to get feedback on what you write. The comments and suggestions that you get from others will help you identify your strengths as a writer, along with areas that need improvement. Get in the habit of carefully considering the feedback you get. Formulate a plan for improving less successful areas so you do not repeat the same mistakes.
Reading to Improve Your Writing
Reading goes hand-in-hand with practice to improve your writing skills. One important benefit of reading is the opportunity to study the writing of others and get models of successful writing that can help you when you create your own documents. Thus, the more you critically read— especially if you try to read the writings of capable and talented authors—the more exposure you will get to the different ways to organize and develop a topic. They will also provide you with ideas for your own compositions. They will give you information you can use to support your ideas.
Finally, they will encourage you to strengthen your critical thinking skills.
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Content adapted from the open course titled “Open Now Developmental English” authored by Cengage Learning, licensed under a CC BY 4.0 license.